Task: Pick a well-known television celebrity or personality who has a public persona on screen that might contrast with their private life or who has a particular reputation – for example, an aggressive interviewer, a philandering sports person or a vain actor. Your examples don’t have to be negative, but caricature tends to focus on people’s failings rather than their successes.

Produce a character portrait of this personality. Aim to make the portrait recognizable. This can come from both from the portrayal of the person and by adding in other visual clues. You may want to work from photographic reference material as a starting point. Then produce a much more satirical caricature of the same person in which you use exaggeration to hint at the other aspects of their personality you know about. Try and maintain a level of recognition, so people know who you are drawing.

Relevant research point: Contemporary Caricature.

Joe Rogan is probably one of the fastest (and most controversial) rising stars in the last couple of years, if not ever. He is famous for his long-form podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, hosted first on YouTube and later by Spotify. The podcast has an interviewing format and conversation topics are of an endless variety, though there are certain ones he will bring up no matter the interview-e. Topics include: current events and new technologies, mixed martial arts, conspiracy theories, drug use (especially DMT), hunting, and comedy. He has seen an unprecedented amount of success because of his approach to interviewing and the way he presents himself and his opinions. That is, with little or no filter. This has resulted in extremely polarizing opinions of him: from exultant adoration to profound and outraged disgust.

Due to his many years as a UFC commentator, reality television presenter, and comedian he has a very good command over his presentation and conversational style. In his comedy segments, one can really observe how he exaggerates tone, posture and facial expressions in order to drive a point home. Since some of these segments are available on YouTube (along with many hours of interviews), there is a lot of material for me to work with. This is one reason I chose him as the subject in the first place. But mostly it was because I have had this image of the caterpillar from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland wearing Rogan’s face, smoking, and asking Alice its bewildering questions.

Studies

In order to create a caricature of someone, one must be familiar with the subject’s physiognomy and typical facial expressions. At least that is what I assumed, since I had never drawn one before. I selected a variety of photographs from the internet, some of him on the podcast and some not, and then proceeded to draw them in my sketchbook. The style is fairly realistic because they are treated as studies. I was not brave enough to just go for stylization straight away. Medium is a soft graphite pencil.

Sketches

Studies done, I was ready to try my hand at the caricature. I selected two facial expressions I felt were characteristic. I called them “The Comedian” and “The Conspiracy Theorist”, though the “Interviewer” would work for the second as well. The first is meant to show Joe’s huge laugh and represent him as a stand up comedian. I felt that the diamond shape going from nose to chin and the squinty eyes were important if I wanted the expression to deliver, so that is what I emphasized.  The second is supposed to show the more unhinged side of him. He has this tendency to widen his eyes until the whites are fully visible around the iris and raise his brows when he wants to make a particularly outrageous remark, or just state a point very loudly. This is obviously a conscious decision on his part, since the a similar expression is seen in his logo. And as stated above, I did try to not make the drawing too similar to that one. Though the eyes are important, the emphasis will rather go to the mouth and chin. All of his trades have to do with speech in one way or another, so it seemed appropriate to bring emphasis to that.

Both illustrations include the headphones because I had seen some popular comments in some of his videos where he appears without them. They were saying he doesn’t look right headphone-less. It’s a funny statement, but it goes to show how important an element they are to his public persona, so I kept them in. The microphone also makes an appearance, but it is more important in the second image than in the first.

Expert caricaturists can do without digital means, but I am not an expert in any way so the warp tool was used liberally to exaggerate the shapes.  I mostly just wiggled them around until the image looked more or less like a bloated version of my drawing, and then drew over the image with a digital inking brush.

Caricaturists seem to like playing around with the shapes until they are less a face and more an assortment of features plucked off a person and then rearranged in such a way as to satisfy artistic rhythm whilst remaining true to the model. I tried to mimic that principle by making the shape of the skull mimic the jutting chin. Skulls, especially bald ones, are usually extremely large in caricatures but here the headphones are as much a part of his head is as the skull, so I simply exaggerated those.

The grinning drawing was less successful, I think. During the re-drawing process I ended up emphasizing his musculature as well as his smile because I thought it would be interesting to reference the “mixed martial arts fanatic” (his words) side of him. The result is unfortunate and rather terrifying. It doesn’t even really look like him.

The second drawing seemed to be more characteristic of him, but I wanted to bring ideas from both into one. I widened his lower jaw even more, instead of just making it just out, emphasizing the mouth. The skull was made even smaller, and slightly sharpened in order to give the shapes some contrast, especially considering the fact that the headphones make a more rounded shape of the silhouette anyhow. The microphone is tiny, because it makes the head look bigger. Same goes for the neck.

The Satirical Caricature

The image of Joe’s face on the body of the caterpillar from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has been in my head for a while now, so I just went with that. I think it must have come during an interview where he happened to be smoking a cigar (he does that on occasion) and he was gesturing, moving the smoke around, asking questions of his guest. Possibly about doing DMT. The image of the blue caterpillar just popped into my head and made me laugh. I’m not sure anyone else would, but I did and that is really sufficient for this exercise as far as I’m concerned.

This time I did not draw on paper at all, just went straight for a digital sketch and then refined it in several stages.

There was some experimentation with color, but I stayed fairly close to the recognizable color scheme of the characters for easy readability. I tried to hold off on coloring the line art because I wanted the drawing to look like a comic strip, but it really did end up bringing it together in my opinion, especially with the gradient.

It’s something of a running joke that Joe can’t hold an interview without asking about DMT, and given the reputation Lewis Carroll’s work has for psychedelic imagery I thought it was rather fitting as a line of dialogue. I tried to make his head as large as possible compared to his body whilst also keeping the composition fairly cohesive. As for Alice, I don’t imagine she would know what DMT is, being from the 19th century and a child to boot.

I did ask the only other person I know who is familiar with Joe’s work if she thinks the caricatures resemble him and if the comic strip makes sense to her. The answer was yes, thankfully.

Task: Working with a contemporary news event, create an illustration that comments on it from a satirical perspective.

I happened to see this video on Russel Brand’s channel the day I first read up on this exercise, so I saved it because I rather don’t like to watch or read the news and the subject seemed to have more than enough potential for imagery. His YouTube channel is probably not what is considered “a proper news source” though I’m entirely unsure of where one could find that nowadays. Mr. Brand, being a comedian, would probably like some funny but poignant imagery to go with his report, so I suppose my selection of news source is fitting enough anyhow.

The basic idea behind the report is that Mars Incorporated has put out a trending story about the very small changes made to M&M’s mascots in order to “keep with the times” and “be inclusive”. A rather unsubtle (but still successful) attempt to make headlines and get people talking about their politics, and more importantly their products. Brand takes the subject further by contrasting the thin well-meaning and progressive façade with the reality of child labor in the cocoa industry. Mars seems to be, despite their previous assertions of progress, one of the chocolate companies that has made the least headway in eliminating child labor from their line of production.

I did have some ideas for imagery while thinking about the article, which I noted, but I wanted to look up some images on the subjects of slavery and child labor for inspiration before starting anything in true.

As far as I could see, the images on anti-slavery tended to be harsher, intending to shock and disgust. They showcase the brutalities that slaves have to endure at the hands of their masters, from branding and flogging to whatever it is they’re doing to the poor woman in The Abolition of the Slave Trade (pictured below).

In contrast, the images on child labor tend to have a lighter tone with sort of Dickensian humor about them. They usually feature a very large man ordering a group of very small children to do something difficult or ridiculous. Happy Childhood Days is a perfect example of this.

Anti Slavery Cartoons

Anti Child Labor Cartoons

Sketches

As stated above, I took notes of my first impressions before taking a look at other cartoons. The thing that stood out to me in the report was the contrast between the frivolity of the subject at hand and the gravity of the child labor issue. Mr. Brand points out Tucker Carlson’s extreme reaction to the story, and I would point out the fact that it’s on the news like this at all. This isn’t a big news story, but it still made enough noise to be on Fox. This makes it more than frivolous, it makes it ridiculous. I would like to work with that contrast: extreme reactions to something inconsequential and no outrage over real tragedy.

Also, Brand’s entire reportage model centers around addressing perspectives from all political extremes when discussing a topic.  Introducing the different voices that he presents would be beneficial if I were illustrating an article written by him or making an image for the very video I watched.

These sketches are mostly of an African child holding up something meant to represent the Mars corporations, whilst people around him discuss the new mascots. Mars could be represented by: a bag of candy, a mound of chocolate, a basket/bowl of  cocoa beans, etc. These ideas sort of resemble the basic concept behind most of the child labor cartoons, with children carrying out difficult tasks which not even adults would to willingly.

I also attempted sketches inspired  by the slavery illustrations. Both are kind of scary, and I ended up ruling them out eventually. The one with the branding was the first to go.

Of all the sketches, the one I wanted to try out first was the simplest. After multiple sketches with compositions containing more than three characters, I wanted to try putting the spotlight on the child instead of the dialogue. This is the opposite of the initial idea, but I still did it. The most obvious reference for a single person carrying a huge weight is Atlas, so I looked up some sculptures to aid me in illustrating the image.

(Center) Unknown Roman sculptor (c. AD 150) Farnese Atlas [marble sculpture] Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

(Flanks) Just a random resin statue, sold online. The seller was generous enough to provide photographs of a variety of angles, which I found very useful. I used this instead of the Farnese Atlas because he seems more crushed by the globe’s weight here and less like a titan.

Played around with colors for a bit, eventually I ended up with something fairly desaturated and in sepia toned outlines and with a very saturated image in orange and blue. I personally like the sepia one better as the colors are more distracting than anything else. However, color tends to be more characteristic of candy, orange especially seems to be considered an especially “delicious” color. I might have used colors specific to the political parties, but I feel that’s fairy specific to region and therefore doesn’t really count. Instead I just used stereotypes. The conservative is basically the Monopoly man, the liberal has colored hair with shaved sides and multiple piercings, the business man is wearing a three-piece suit (though he seems to have lost his jacket).

I asked others what they thought of the image and they seem to get the idea. This is really all that I can ask for since I have a problem with clarity when I make these sorts of illustrations.

Task: Develop a small self-published book based on an idea from your sketchbooks. Produce a small photocopied fanzine or a one-off artist’s book. Look at your sketchbooks for ideas of work that could be developed into a self-contained narrative or collected together to form a publication. For example, it could be a character you have developed, a particular style of working or a series of drawings on a similar theme. How would you title your work and how does this title feed back into the development of your idea?
Once you’ve finished your publication, reflect on it in your learning log. What sort of audience do you think would be interested in your work?

Fantastical stories and creatures are the order of the day. In my case, every day. The things I usually find joy in sketching and painting tend to fall along the lines of elves and trolls, dwarves and dragons. It was this way when I was younger, and I suspect not much will change as I age. It’s not a particularly unique situation, I think most fantasy artists and children’s book illustrators fall into a similar category. This shows in the sheer amount of fantastical art that exists on the internet.

When brainstorming for a project one has to take into consideration time, subject, purpose, style and materials. Each element influences the other, but perhaps time is the most tyrannical. I chose to allocate no more than a week (I will later realize that this estimate was hilariously low, I might have gotten overenthusiastic). Subject was determined by the contents of my sketchbook: magical creatures. Purpose: to be posted as an artist book on Behance. The style is influenced by both subject and time. Medievalist aesthetics are often employed in the fantastical and folkloric styles. The hands on nature of the artist’s book also made me think back on a time when books were always bound decorated by hand. Therefore I used medieval bound tomes and illuminated manuscripts as inspiration. Materials are determined by the rest of the elements. Time/efficiency demand a digital medium, but the manuscript idea requires a more personal touch. I recently came into the possession of some golden ink. I thought it would be a good idea to make the illustrations digitally, print them out and then finish the book in ink.

Before going further I had to narrow down the subject a little. I chose characters, and therefore that would eliminate the need for too much background. Seven is always a good number, and one that would make a book of at least 16 pages, counting title and end page, if I give each character a spread. The specific characters I selected were: the troll, the water nymph, the minotaur, the faun, the centaur, the goblin and the forest gnome. I kind of imagined a woodland sort of theme. “Residents of the Woodland Realm” has a decent ring to it. As I was brainstorming, I took notes of some story ideas that came to mind for each character which I could then add to one side of the spread.

I first cut out the shape at a A5 size. Theoretically, this would be easier to ink by hand, because it’s larger, but I preferred the even smaller A6-ish one because of the thickness relative to size gives it a more pleasing “heft”.

I used some scrap papers I keep around precisely for this sort of thing to make a mock up and drew some crude thumbnails on the pages inside.

Sketching out the characters was not too difficult since I frequently draw similar things. All that I did was play around with the poses and context to better fit the text I had conceived. For example, the Troll ended up being less of a menacing bridge guardian and more of a romantic/ poetic type. The pose is meant to convey that. Nymphs are usually portrayed as playful in art, but this one is rather sad on account of unrequited love. The Minotaur is the boastful, proud type and the pose is meant to dominate the page. The Faun is smaller, but not willing to back down if she strongly believes to be in the right. The Centaur is regal and stately, so he’s on top of the “mountain” where the sun is shining right above his extended hand. The Goblin is a jester (and a trickster) and he’s dressed appropriately, hunched over his own joke flash cards and giggling. The Gnome is dressed in practical clothing, and her annoyed face shows a no-nonsense attitude to life. She stands in front of a door carved in a tree and two mushrooms which are meant to be a size reference to better see that she is very small.

First sketches were on paper.

Shape was determined by tracing a photograph of the mock up with the pen tool in Photoshop.

I could then sketch in more detail, taking into account the shape of the composition.

Line Art

Line art was done with a more careful hand. Several of the illustrations also include decorative motifs inspired from medieval illuminated manuscripts. The vines with three-pointed leaves in the Minotaur drawing and the pomegranate ones in the Faun drawing especially. But I used a similar sort of  design rhythm for other places like the roots in the Gnome and Goblin drawings.

Colors

The look of the images I was inspired by depends on color choice a lot. Artificial pigments are very new, so the people making these manuscripts had a limited selection of colors. I used this article about 14th to 16th century illuminations (from the Marcadé collection) to inform the color choices for my project. It was very useful to know what the pigment categories were. I did not want to use colors which are too far fetched for the era. I did take some liberties, especially with saturation. The images they show are obviously washed out, not only because of the way they are photographed, but also because the manuscripts are centuries old.

I did some color picking after heightening the saturation on the image of the illuminations studied in the article and made a color palette I could use in my own illustrations.

Tinted Lines

The characters, environments and even decorative elements are not colored in flat and then outlined in black. Generally they have some dimension because they are shaded to give the illusion of form and outlined in the same color, just darker. I tried to create the same effect by coloring in the line art and then adding some shading and texture.

Text

The text was written in the brainstorming stage, only small changes needed to be made as the project advanced. The font is the standard Old English Text MT. The font is free for personal and public use and it delivered the aesthetic I was looking for while being legible from distance. Other fonts looked good, but could not be read when really tiny. The book was going to be really tiny and therefore the text needed to be legible. I contemplated the idea of making original lettering but determined that I had taken too long with the illustrations.

The wood chip photograph makes for an excellent faux paper texture.

Playing around with the title. I ended up creating a new border design, but used the same “frames” for each capital letter to keep the look consistent across the board. The color palette is in green because there is “Woodland” in the title. It seemed appropriate.

Digital Illustrations (End Result)

Printing

I had gone to the local print shop while I was still in the brainstorming phase. After doing some tests, I realized I preferred the images printed on their larger printer. I did not ask what the difference between the machines was, but the final images made with the larger one felt slightly embossed while the others were flat. They printed on 160 g paper, but since I knew the book was going to be very thin, I resolved to print everything on one sheet of paper and then glue the pages to each other back to back. I would not do this if I planned on making more than one, obviously. I would go to a proper typography place and ask them to print on think paper front and back.

Binding

Making the Cover

The covers are made of cardboard, cut after the shape of the folded pages. They were pasted on the cut out fabric, which was then snipped at the edges because I needed them to fold with as little wrinkling as possible. A bit of a loosing battle, since the fabric was so thick and the book was so little, but the end result isn’t too wrinkled.

Finally, I glued the end pages to the cover and left everything to dry overnight under a very thick anatomy book.

Finished Book

Conclusion

It’s an adorable little thing. I have no idea what to do with it now that I have it, but I imagine something like this could be cute in a kid’s room somewhere. Probably not one made by hand though, as the child would end up improving the art by themselves. The hand-made element is fairly important, however. I think, as far as potential audience goes, there is an interest in pretty, hand-made things. Artsy people with money would probably get them as gifts, if not for themselves. I tried to calculate pricing based on hours, materials and added 15% for tax and got at a grand total of $290. I would not pay that much for this. One could argue that it’s an original, unique art object, and that some would ask more for something similar, but I still think it’s ridiculous. I have seen people on Etsy charge 300 Euros for completely blank hand-bound journals. People seem to buy them. I find that both baffling and hopeful. Perhaps and audience could be built around something like this.

For one of the research projects about self-publishing, I created a Behance account. Behance is interesting as a social media website because it allows the user to post “projects”. I have posted such a project with this very book. Not many will see it yet, because I have not  used the account long, but I’m hoping to create more project posts on there. I also made a short Instagram story after finishing the book to share with the small following I have there. Using such tools for self-promotion and self-publishing, I might create an interested audience to communicated with, who might be interested in ordering commissions.

There were some hiccups with this project, such as the time it took to create. I really should have anticipated that. The printing job wasn’t quite as clean as I would have liked it to be. There are streak and some discoloration in places. I would have liked to do some gold embossing. I even bought some golden metallic art foil and the appropriate glue, but the book really was too small to do it without ruining the images. I do not regret the size of the book because it has great proportions, but I still would have liked to do that. The embroidery is charming rather than good. I’m just glad I didn’t ruin the linen  or get too tangled in embroidery floss. Another thing that was difficult to determine was how to create a book with even page edges. If one binds folded pages which have ben sandwiched within each other, the pages at the middle will obviously protrude outward, creating an uneven edge. I tried to minimize this by having a frame within the illustrated pages that is at some distance from the real edge, allowing me to snip off the excess and even things out. It wasn’t a perfect solution. The slight ruggedness is fine in this instance, but I think next time I might just bind the pages individually, completely eliminating the need for reshaping the edge. Something to consider for the future.

Overall, I am very happy with this little book. It’s an excellent project for the portfolio. I learned a lot in the process, and I think I am getting better at hand-binding. It’s something I seem to enjoy more each time I do it.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with it. It feels wrong to just keep it locked away with all the other sketches and paintings..,

Connected Research point: Self-published comics, graphic novels, and fanzines

Task: Using a grid format of pixels, create a series of illustrations that explores your relationship to digital technologies. This might be a love or hate relationship, a document of all the forms of technology you engage with, the games you’ve played or pixel portraits of your
friends on Facebook. Be imaginative with how you approach this.

My relationship with technology is similar to that most people of my generation. I grew up with it. It simply is. I have been exposed to technology since before I could speak (even if they were just VHS’s and not telephones that can recognize your face and anticipate your Christmas checklist). Even art-wise, I distinctly remember being a child and thoroughly enjoying the limited possibilities of Microsoft Paint. It’s a process of continuous exploration as well, since technology advances so quickly. Therefore I used this opportunity to explore different techniques one could use to create “pixelated images”. Some were more successful than others.

I could have looked up how other people create pixel art, but I instead picked the hard way first. I tried to repeatedly blur and then re sharpen the image until it created a pixelated texture. I also tried to save the image in increasingly small sized and the blow it up. This created a rather messy look and was not wroth the stubborn effort I put into it.

The second effete (using one of my own pieces again) was marginally more successful, though it is arguably cheating because the squares are not actually individual pixels. Photoshop has a Mosaic effect that can be used as a filter, similar to the Blurring effect.

I tried to use the mosaic image as a base for new artwork, but sadly the program is not quite good enough at distinguishing where the “squares” begin and end and it creates weird margins and composite shapes.

Then I bit the bullet and looked up how to do it on the internet. YouTube is very helpful. The process can be followed without difficulty here.

Task: Creatively develop a range of ideas that explores how your illustrations or drawings would work within the context of street art. Think about what media you would use, the scale you’d work at, where you would site your work and what it would be about.

Street art is not an area of art I have ever thought of exploring before. I am not personally drawn to it. However, I can appreciate the skill required to create a piece of street art. A street artist must consider the environment that the piece will be a part of, both conceptually and physically. They must consider what the environment means to the people living there and whether they want to create contrast with it or build upon it. They must consider the surface and the scale of the “canvas” and prepare their working area accordingly. These are not generally things I think about when illustrating.

I will not be creating any street art in a real environment, as I do not have the skills with materials that are generally used in street art. I also wanted to be a little more free with the area I could choose. Finding the places where street artists are allowed to work in my city would be the realistic thing, but as I never intended to actually create a real piece of artwork, I never investigated. Targu Mures does have a street art event during the summer, so I am sure I could have contacted someone and found out if I really wanted to. As it was, I just went about the town, looking for interesting surfaces to create a digital piece of art for.

Close to a busy area of downtown, I found this strange structure. It is technically part of the office building behind it, though I am not sure it is used for more than storage and the advertising panel on top. I thought its structure could make for an interesting piece that is cylindrical instead of flat.

I did not much take into account the building the structure is a part of because it’s a bank. Theoretically, I could have taken the project in a direction where I pretended the bank hired me to create a piece for advertising purposes. Instead, what I chose to focus on was the fact that the structure was in a central area very close to the Town Hall and the Palace of Culture. The cylindrical, tower-like shape made me think of two important pieces of art in Romanian history: Trojan’s Column and the Infinity Column by Brancusi.

Trojan’s Column shows Rome’s victory over Dacia. It was essentially a very tall and expensive advertising campaign Emperor Trojan built in order to showcase the results of two long, costly wars to the Roman nobility, who paid for said wars. Therefore the story told on the column should probably be taken with a grain of salt, historically speaking, but it still is the only primary source telling the story of this important part of Dacian, and later Romanian, history. The story told is not totally in favor of the Roman armies at fist, as the first Dacian war was won by the Dacians, only for the tables to be turned in the second war, where the Dacian army marches to its ultimate defeat. The reliefs exaggerate the brutality of the Dacians and the heroic nature of the Romans, but the story told is compelling. To a modern Romanian, it represents a conflict of two peoples who are in equal parts our ancestors.

The Infinity Column, by Constantin Brancusi, is a sculpture erected in 1937 though there is evidence of similar projects existing since 1918. It was erected in honor of the Romanian soldiers who died in the First World War. It is 29.35 meters tall and is built from 16 “blocks”. The design strongly resembles funerary poles used in the south of Romania.

Using the photos I took downtown, I made a sketch of the structure from different angles on my digital tablet. Then I proceeded to sketch out some ideas inspired from the images of soldiers marching on Trojan’s Column.

The idea I ended up preferring was in a more cheery theme than the source material. Instead of people marching in war, I instead wanted to focus on the beauty of people coming together joyfully. And since the cultural aspect was an important part of the theme I was going with, I decided to draw the figures on the column in traditional garb, dancing the traditional Romanian dances and playing music. The red figure in the middle is shown running uphill in contrast with the “army” of grey people plodding in the background. The grey people are a not to the original marching figures and are a reference to war and conformity, while the red figure running uphill is a image of vitality and joy in the face of so-called inevitable doom. The red in the figure is also found in the traditional garb of the dancing and music-playing figures.

The image was rendered using Photoshop, though I would imagine that it would look quite different done with spray paint.

My second “canvas” was even bigger than the first. I figured since I do not need to ask for permission I might as well chose any building that I thought could use improving, so I took a photo of our lovely, dingy little downtown mall and started thinking of ideas to use on it. Since it would be such a large piece ( I am not even certain people make street art that large) I thought it would be nice to include more of an Art Nouveau sensibility, unlike the “column” piece from above. It would better harmonize with the buildings around it. And since the piece would be in such a central part of the town, I had to think of something which would represent Targu Mures while also being beautiful. Or at least not stiff and boring.

The process was very similar to the one for the image above, though instead of Trojan’s column I used various Art Nouveau artists as inspiration for the style. The color scheme was more inspired by the buildings around the mall in order for it to blend in nicely.

Sketching over the traced image.

Line art over more accurate traced image.

Colors

Mocked up in evironment

It was fun, desecrating other people’s buildings (even in digital form) but I don’t think I would like actually having to paint something on a building. I suspect that such a big project would be a team effort anyhow, so I am happy to leave such things to the experts.

Task: The circus is coming to town! Create a poster advertising what’s on, where and when, but only use paper to do it. Use coloured paper, work with collage, cutting and layering, folding or sculpting. Be creative in your approach to image-making and typography. Scan or photograph your final piece and reflect on how the limitation of only being able to use one material has affected how creative you can be. Was this limitation a help or a hindrance? Reflect on the results in your learning log.

The first step in any project is research. I used the internet (Pinterest) to browse for interesting-looking collage techniques and a variety of designs for circus posters. Circus posters all tend to veer towards a sort of nostalgic look, echoing the design sensibilities from the middle of the 20th century with some elements of late 19th century poster art.

My own sketches echoed the designs from the references. I tried out multiple ideas in the thumbnails, playing around with the complexity of the image and with the circus elements I would best like to include in the final piece. In order to narrow down and better define my ideas, I did three more detailed sketches using the three ideas I liked the most.

The first is a fairly classic poster with a female ringmaster as the focal point and a background in red and white which echoes the classic design of a circus tent.

I was inspired by some Polish circus posters for the second design. I liked their simplicity. The image is mostly black with the only one element (besides the text) being a female acrobat mid swing.

The third poster idea features animals, an elephant and a seal, performing a balancing act. The text is all constrained to the platform, allowing the rest of the image to breathe. This design is taller than the others, and has atypical proportions in order to further exaggerate the height of the animal’s “tower”. The red and white stripes have a similar purpose.

All the designs are for an imaginary circus I named “Salazar’s Spectacular Circus”. I mostly chose these words because I liked the alliteration. It felt appropriately cheesy for a circus act.

Out of all three, I continued to work with the first design, because I felt a collage would need more elements in order for it to be a challenge. Which it was. I would later regret choosing this design. But I still thought it was the most fitting of them all.

I selected a sheet of 40×60 cm sixed paper of a reasonable thickness, give that I would later glue multiple elements on it. The sketch was quickly transferred to the page and then I went through my collection of paper and ephemera which I thought would be useful for the project. I decided early on that I did not want to buy more paper so I had to  make do with what I had. I understood that this would result in a patchy-looking design, but I made my peace with it.

The piles were organized according to color and after some deliberation I realized that I did not have enough paper to use in the color scheme I needed.

Knowing that the requirements for the task are to use paper only, and not any sort of paint, I was a little hesitant to re paint some of my neutral paper into the appropriate colors. But then I decided that it didn’t count as cheating because I was merely preparing my materials not using a paintbrush on the poster itself.

I had red acrylic paint as well as gold acrylic sticks on hand, so I used those to prepare the various newspapers, clothing patterns and book page. For the black, I used ink on old scraps of drawing paper.

Then came the hard part. Cutting out all the shapes I would need to create the poster itself. Using a ruler, I did my best to measure the sketch and transfer the proportions to the scraps of paper, then drew out the designs, cutting them out and carefully ordering them in to piles in order to not get them confused with the piles  of “raw” material. I was especially careful when cutting out the letters. Lettering designs was solely based on what would be easiest to cut out. Except for the word “spectacular” which was a true nightmare to cut.

To get a rough idea of what I had so far, I arranged the pieces of the “puzzle” as well as I could on the page. Only after I was satisfied enough with this did I start to actually glue the paper to the puzzle pieces. I started with the background elements and continued until all was left was the features of the face.

Once most of what the image required was on the page, I cut out some other small elements such as buttons and lines in order to make the image pop more.

The overall experience was rather frustrating. I do not think I enjoy collage at all. I do not like the mess, the glue and the result has a lot of left to be desired. My biggest grievance is that I did not make it very clean. This is mostly due to my lack of experience, obviously, but the problem is there nonetheless.

The main thing I would do differently is designing the whole image in illustrator first and printing out mock up pieces, and only cutting out the good paper once I was happy with the overall design in mock-up form. I would then use the mock up pieces and trace out the real elements, resulting in a much cleaner attempt. This does not solve my glue problem, but It would make the whole thing much less haphazard. I like the final look of the individually clued letters, but for cursive I think I would just print out the shape with the text written on it instead of painstakingly cutting the thing out.

The urge to just take out a marker and make it look nicer that way was almost comical. I truly want to just paint all over it and fix it up a little. I am left with the impression that I just do not think in shapes. I prefer lines, light and shadow, and mark-making.

Task: You’ve been asked to create a range of illustrations for contemporary ceramics that draws on the visual history and symbolism of pottery in some way. You can start with any historical period, draw on any tradition of image-making within ceramics, or perhaps make reference to the symbolism and visual storytelling of the blue and white Willow pattern, but you need to bring this up to date through your own illustrations. Create work within the context of plates, cups, saucers, teapots or vases. Either find cheap white ceramics to work on directly or mock up your work via Photoshop. It’s a good idea to work at the same scale as the ceramics themselves, so you may need to increase the scale of your line to make your illustrations larger and bolder. In your learning log reflect on the experience of applying your illustrations to a surface other than paper. What did this opportunity offer you and how can you take what you’ve learned back into your paper-based work?

Over the centuries the Greeks developed a variety of vessels in many shapes and sizes which would oftentimes be indicative of their use. Some were for storage (if they had lids) others were for mixing, others for drinking. The fancier the structure and the decoration, the more likely it was that the vessel was used for special occasions or rituals. Three prime examples are the kylix, used for drinking wine, the loutrophoros, used for carrying a bride’s bathwater, and the hydria, used for water as the name suggests.

I used the story in two of the three ideas for the kylix. I tried to put a funny twist on all of them, though. The first idea was to replace old heroes with new ones. Captain America stands in place of a Lapith warrior and Deadpool in place of the centaur. Captain America is commonly characterized as the embodiment of virtue within comic book canon, whilst Deadpool is the definition of someone who lets all their worst impulses loose at all times. I thought they were a fitting enough modern equivalent, because neither is really inherently good or evil and yet the contrast is evident enough for anyone who is at least tangentially familiar with the characters. It also helps that the Captain’s suit is a “heroic blue” and that his helmet has the Mercury-esque wings on it. The imagery hearkens to certain virtuous traits. Deadpool’s suit is red, generally considered a passionate color, and his pose is irreverent, despite his predicament.

The second image with a centaur shows the creature passed out from drink in a very uncomfortable position. Theoretically, this shows that he won the battle with the human warrior, but lost the battle with the drink. The outer side of the vessel is decorated with grapes which stand out in relief.

The middle image is just a bit of fun. I thought it could be amusing to integrate memes as modern imagery. I used the two most well known Kermit the frog memes, the one with the tea for the inside and the one with the dark alter ego on the outside. The alter ego image is very similar in theme with the centaur/Lapith battles, if not in looks.

Some of the ideas were better than others. I quite liked the kylix with the superheroes, but I’m always hesitant to use other people’s properties in my work, and I also liked the centaur passed out on the stairs in a conceptual sense, but I was not convinced by the sketch once it was on paper. The image that best combined the original concept of the vase with a modern twist was the first hydria sketch. It’s a familiar scene, even across time. I don’t believe 21st century people invented sitting in a room doing separate tasks and not speaking to each other, despite what some say. The joke is mostly in the videogame controller and the laptop.

The process itself was simple, if a little time consuming. Using photoshop, I first sketched over the original thumbnail, trying to also create a symmetrical vessel in the process. Then I traced over the shape to create a base and carefully drew in the lines and patterns framing the image. I drew inspiration from various pots instead of a specific one. The second sketch layer better defines the poses of the characters as well as the supporting compositional elements.

The original idea had been in black-figure, but I tested out a red-figure option as well and decided I liked the contrast better. It felt more readable.

The final shape was traced with the lasso tool, creating a clean shape. Layering dark texture over a red, clay-like foundation adds more depth and realism to the pot. While tracing the third drawing layer, I realized that I had yet to see a portrait facing forwards on a Greek pot, so I set the left hand character in profile, angling the head down towards the cat and extending his hand towards it. The cat turns to that character, adding to the communication in the composition.

The last step was just rendering the image so that the pot looks like it belongs in three dimensional space.

I am not a potter, unfortunately, so I have no way of knowing how this would look like in real life. The rendering would have to be enough. It is slightly sad though, it might have been fun to have such a piece laying around. Even if I did not actually paint on it, I did have to think a bit differently about how to create the composition and about the decorative elements, which I generally don’t include in my work. I also coped out a little and considered this a piece with only one decorated side and a simple black back, but if I had chosen a simpler design, I would have created different motifs for the different sides. The thing I most plan on trying out more in my paper-based work is the more decorative approach. I generally rely on texture rather than pattern or decoration. It is a little more time-consuming, but the results are very pretty and it’s also a way one could include a bit of hidden symbolism.